Church 'bungling' blamed for mould attack on Mary Queen of Scots archive

A group of leading academics has accused the Roman Catholic Church of
“bungling” the care of a priceless archive of historic documents dating back
to the 12th Century allowing it to be damaged by an aggressive white mould.

The collection, in Edinburgh, which includes letters written by Mary Queen of Scots and material relating to Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, has been at the centre of a bitter row between some of Scotland’s most prominent historians and the Church over the last few years.

They were angered by a decision, signed off by the now disgraced former leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, to allow the collection of more than a million artefacts to be broken up, and much of it transferred to Aberdeen University on a long-term loan.

Columba House

The Church has long maintained that Columba House, the grand building in Edinburgh in which the archive was housed, was “not fit for purpose”.

But academics claim the bishops want to sell the building to shore up the Church's finances following an earlier plan to auction off treasures.

Figures including Prof Tom Devine, one of Scotland’s most eminent historians, and the church historian Prof Diarmaid McCullough, of Oxford University, were among signatories to a public letter last year protesting against the decision.

But matters were brought abruptly to a head in April when the Church announced that the archive would be closed with immediate effect for urgent conservation work.

It said that mould had taken hold but gave no further details of the extent of the damage and refused to publish a report by conservation experts.

The announcement was overshadowed at the time by the scandal engulfing the Church because of the resignation and effective exile of Cardinal O’Brien, a vehement opponent of gay marriage, after admitting sexual misconduct with priests.

The collection includes large amounts of material amassed by Scottish Catholics in exile in Paris, Rome, Regensburg and elsewhere around the time of the reformation. Much of it survived damage in upheavals such as the French Revolution before being brought back to Scotland in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Oscar Wilde (Getty Images)

It includes letters written by Mary Queen of Scots to allies in France as well as a set of 19th Century personal papers including correspondence with Oscar Wilde.

The historians accused the Church of putting up a “wall of silence” over the extent of the damage and are demanding the publication of the report.

They believe that the spread of the mould could be a direct result of a decision to partially close the building last autumn after the departure of two long-standing archivists who had been running the collection.

Instead of being open five days a week, the site was closed much of the time over the winter, opening only intermittently.

“I don’t think they realised when they got rid of the two archivists … what a physical impact it would have,” said Dr Michael Turnbull, a leading Catholic historian.

“Archbishop Mario Conti [the former Archbishop of Glasgow who is in charge of the trustees] has said that the mould was known about for 30 years which is true but it wasn’t to the same degree.

“What has happened now is that there has been a really significant attack on the documents.

“When it is open five days a week you can control it but when it is unchecked it is just rampant.”

He added: “It is a wall of silence that we have come up against. You could call it negligence or bungling, absolutely.”

Prof Devine said that the debacle had soured relations between the Church and academics not just in Scotland but overseas.

“It all amounts to a sorry tale of gross discourtesy,” he said.

“This issue will remains one of bitter memory in the minds and emotions of scholars not just in the United Kingdom but worldwide about the way this was managed but more concerning is the break-up of the archive and the fact that it was part of a world constellation of archives and depositories in Edinburgh.”

He added: “This is part of a wider story.

“As we know there are some difficulties in the Scottish Roman Catholic Church at the moment but there has been an increasing call from members of laity for increasing transparency across the board.

“I am a Roman Catholic, I belong to a hierarchical church and this is the first time in my experience that I have been brought up against the reality of what hierarchy means.”

But Father Tom Boyle, Assistant Secretary General of the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said it was “laughable” to suggest that the mould attack could be linked to the partial closure.

“It is not as if the archives were locked up and no one was going in to check on them,” he said.

“The archives were in no sense left to fester.”

He added that the mould issue was already known about before the archivists’ departure.

“The scale of the problem may have become apparent but it is not a problem which just suddenly appeared,” he said.

He added that while much of the damaged material was still being given specialist treatment, anything from before 1878 which had been affected by mould had now been treated and transferred to Aberdeen.

He said it was due to be available for scholars by the end of this month. A spokeswoman for the university said it “did not have a date yet” for when it would be made available.